Last year, an event called GLADIATOR (collaboration between DEEP and CMA) was held in the Momotaro Arena in Okayama, Japan. A few years before that, a big two day event was held in South Korea as well. This year the GLADIATOR executive committee is back with the third GLADIATOR event that will be held at the Okayama Budokan on November 3rd.

The last event was a Japan-Korea friendship event where 6 Korea Vs. Japan fights were held with Korea winning 5 of those fights. The same theme continues this year with 8 fights between Japanese and Korean fighters scheduled.

The young Korean opponents of Shoko Sato and Daijiro Matsui are, similar to Chan Sung Jung when he defeated Michihiro Omigawa in last years GLADIATOR event, receiving a chance to maybe get on to something bigger in case of victory in the November fights.

Below is the card of the event (I’ll add the Korean names as soon as a Korean MMA website post the card).

The first two fights for DREAM.12 have been announced and they are high-level ones. In two Lightweight fights, DEEP Lightweight champion Katsunori Kikuno will take on Eddie Alvarez and Won Sik “Parky” Park will battle newly crowned Cage Force Lightweight champion Kuniyoshi Hironaka in a fight which I think might be a little too early for the young Korean.

Also announced as a participant of the card, Korean Myeon Ho Bae, who is 7-1 in his last 8, will make his DREAM debut.

Update: The fights will be fought in a hexagon cage and they will be 3 5 minute rounds(NO!!!).

The White Cage - Sportsnavi.com

Update #2: The current plan is to hold one special cage event like DREAM.12 each year from 2010 and onward.

Parky has trained Taekwondo for 7 years and is currently a 3rd degree black belt. He says: “A lot of Japanese fighters are proud of their backbone like Judo and Karate. However, Korean fighters who have Taekwondo as their backbone, they aren’t proud of it. I’m not an elite Taekwondo player but it is the foundation which made it possible for me to fight in MMA. I tried Taekwondo moves like it’s kicks and sidestep in my fights before and it was plenty effective. I want to use Taekwondo’s strong points in MMA and make the predominance of Taekwondo known.”

Taekwondo Vs. Kyokushin Karate

With three consecutive first round victories in DEEP, Parky has his eyes set on Katsunori Kikuno and the DEEP Lightweight title. He says that Kikuno has power and his middle kick is strong. He is currently preparing a counter for Kikuno’s crescent kick. If the time comes he intends to increase his physical strength training and train with Jang Yong Kim, the only fighter to have not been stopped by Kikuno in his last 5 fights, as well.

“I’ll definitely take back the belt that Bang Seung Hwan relinquished.”

The White Cage Of DREAM Next

To level up Parky has started to visit Team MAD to train with fighters such as UFC’s Dong Hyun Kim and Myeon Ho Bae.

On September 29th, 2009, Parky was announced as a participant of the white cage of DREAM where he will face Cage Force Lightweight champion Kuniyoshi Hironaka.

Fight Videos

Visit Parky’s YouTube channel to see most of his MMA fights and some grappling footage.